'Scandal' Emmy Winner Celebrates the Year of Dan

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Dan Bucatinsky

Guest actor in a drama winner Dan Bucatinsky is riding high after also scoring a development deal with boss Shonda Rhimes and a renewal for his TLC series -- and his production company's 10-year anniversary.

To say Dan Bucatinsky is having a great year would be an understatement.

The actor-writer-producer celebrated his first Emmy win Sunday for guest actor in a drama for his recurring role as Scandal White House reporter James, who also happens to be the husband to the president's chief of staff.

Bucatinsky's Emmy capped off a week that included a development deal with Scandal showrunner Shonda Rhimes -- who doubles as his boss on Grey's Anatomy, where he serves as a co-executive producer-writer. And it's not just a development deal: Bucatinsky will adapt his best-selling parenting bookDoes This Baby Make Me Look Straight? Confessions of a Gay Dad, which was published last year.

"I feel like a lot of things have converged all at once. I had many, many years where it was bupkis," Bucatinsky told THR.

Not to be outdone, Bucatinsky's whirlwind month also saw TLC grant a second season to unscripted entry Who Do You Think You Are, which he executive produces via his Is or Isn't Entertainment production company with longtime friend Lisa Kudrow and his husband, screenwriter Don Roos.

"It's a bit of a three-car pileup and I couldn't be happier about it," Bucatinsky says. "Plus Lisa Kudrow is doing an arc on Scandal. It's really a time when she and I are celebrating our company's 10-year anniversary. It's a good year, plus marriage equality? This has been a great year."

Bucatinsky acknowledged as much during his acceptance speech at last week's Creative Arts Emmys when he thanked is real-life husband, Roos, and his onscreen hubby, Jeff Perry, in a sweet yet powerful speech from the podium. (The ceremony will be broadcast Saturday night on FXX.)

"I had already convinced myself in the hour that I was sitting there waiting for my category that it was going to go to [Homeland's] Rupert Friend. Then [Mad Men creator] Matthew Weiner opened the envelope and he hesitated for one second, which I've learned means someone is trying to figure out how to say my last name," Bucatinsky recalls. "My heart sunk and I turned to Don and then Matt said my name. I think I kissed Don on the chin and raced up there as fast as I could. I didn't take the speech out of my pocket, and I just tried to get my shit together. I tried to remember all the people I wanted to thank and wound up speaking much more from the heart than I would have had I read from my prepared speech. I meant what I said and I was so proud to be in that category and so grateful to Shonda Rhimes and Jeff Perry. I'm still in shock."

Bucatinsky's Emmys whirlwind isn't over yet. After celebrating his win at the Governor's Ball, the author-writer-producer-actor capped the victory as, he says, "any self-respecting Emmy winner" would: "We came home and watched The Real Housewives of New Jersey."

Following a week of work and celebrating with the Scandalcast and countless Emmy parties, Bucatinsky will head to Sunday's Primetime Emmy Awards, where he will serve as a presenter while pulling for Scandal star Kerry Washington to take home the statuette for best actress in a drama for her leading role as fixer Olivia Pope.

"I get to present Sunday and am thrilled to be there with Kerry," he says. "I have a feeling she's going to have a good night."

Scandal co-stars Guillermo Diaz (Huck) and Darby Stanchfield (Abby), meanwhile, were equally thrilled for Bucatinsky's win, which marked the show's first Emmy victory after two seasons on ABC. But the duo, who found out about the news on Twitter since the ceremony wasn't broadcast live, almost didn't believe it was true.

"[Co-star and notorious practical joker] Josh Malina told Guillermo on Twitter and he thought Josh was joking," Stanchfield tellsTHR, adding that she'll "be surprised" if Washington doesn't win. "Dan Bucatinsky was shocked and surprised and Guillermo thought Josh was kidding, we thought it was a practical joke!"

As for what to expect from the political fixer's upcoming third season, Stanchfield urged viewers to buckle up. "This season is sincerely much more complicated. Shonda and the writers have spun this web that is four-dimensional. It's so incredibly complicated and we're all shocked. We've now read six scripts, and every single script there's a bomb that drops."